Digger

Is a story about a wombat

More specifically, it is a story by author and artist Ursula Vernon about a particularly no-nonsense wombat who finds herself stuck on the wrong end of a one-way tunnel in a strange land where nonsense seems to be the specialty. Now with the help of a talking statue of a god, an outcast hyena, a shadow-being of indeterminate origin, and an oracular slug she seeks to find out where she is and how to go about getting back to her Warren.

With an irreverent sense of humor and a fantasy protagonist with a healthy dose of skepticism, Digger rapidly gained a huge following of devoted fans eager for the twice a week updates of the webcomic for the duration of the comic's run. Digger's story is now complete. It has been compiled in six bound volumes, each including additional content not posted online.

2004 Sequential Tart Tartie AwardsBest Webcomic About a Pragmatic But Tough Talking Wombat, the Semi-Ectoplasmic Shadowling Who Keeps Following Her Around, and the Various Warrior Clerics, Rat-Keeping Librarians, and Sentient Statues of Elephant-Headed Deities She Encounters When the Latest Tunnel She's Digging Accidentally Takes Her to a Very Foreign Country

Notable Nominations

2006 Eisner AwardsTalent Deserving Wider Recognition

Web Cartoonists Choice Awards
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008

Ursa Major Awards
2005, 2006, 2007

Notable Reviews

"Vernon's tangled tale of an engineer wombat who stumbles into a world full of tribal warrior hyenas and oracular slugs sounds like grist for a children's picture book, but it rapidly takes on an adult gravity and complexity that doesn't in any way hinder its charming, wry, thoroughly unique humor."

“...unlike most ‘unlikely heroines,’ you honestly get the sense that when Digger makes it home, she’s going to go to bed, get up the next morning, apply for an Engineer’s job and get on with a proper sort of life, thank you anyway.”

“This strip is astoundingly beautiful. Its linework is sublime, with a sense of woodcuts and of children's book illustrations and of japanese calligraphy all wrapped up into one.”

“If you’d told me a few years ago that one of my favorite comics would star a talking wombat, I wouldn’t have believed you. Okay, that’s not true. I probably would have (I’m odd like that). But if you’d also told me that it would be a rich fantasy adventure, a bitingly sarcastic satire, a meditation on myth and religion, and possessed of a quirky and beautiful black and white art style, I might have been slightly more suspicious. Yet Digger... is all of these things and more.“

“The series looks fabulous...Vernon’s sketchy yet elegant art style is difficult to define. The linework seems somewhere between a comic strip, a children’s book, and a textured medieval wood carving. There’s a dash of Brian Froud in Vernon’s rendering of the human characters, all wide-faced, big-nosed, and beady-eyed types. Beyond this, her artwork remains fiercely individualistic and gives the series a look all its own.”

“Digger has developed into an engrossing epic with tone-perfect mythology in a beautifully drawn world that is alternately, and sometimes simultaneously, funny, creepy, and wondrous. And in a story full of characters it’s easy to care for, Digger herself may be the best of the lot—smart, tough, and sensible.”

“Unlike many webcomics, Digger opts for a novelistic structure in lieu of discrete plot arcs. Digger's relationships with various factions and characters shift and grow over time, and she has to contend with the nature of good and evil – especially as she attempts to instruct the increasingly dangerous Shadowchild in the basics of morality. And Vernon explores some interesting ideas about storytelling, myth-creation, and the relationship between worshipers and the divine.”

“... if you’re looking for a comic that involves talking animals (wombats! mice! oracular snails!), tribes of matriarchal hyenas (including a pervy ol’ grandmother), god-embodied statues, shadowspirits, and little warrior-monks with dark gods in their heads (and an interesting twist on the whole Yeshua mythos), and some seriously great writing and humour, I’d definitely recommend Digger to you. I think it was Ed’s stories of He-Is and She-Is, and his background, that really pulled me in. I think I cried (or wanted to) the first time I read what had happened to him.”